


Soft Light

by northernexposure



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/M, Light Angst, PWP, Porn with Feelings, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-19
Updated: 2012-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 20:23:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20315482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/northernexposure/pseuds/northernexposure
Summary: She turned her head to look at him, and her beauty in the soft emergency light took him by surprise, pierced something in him.





	Soft Light

**Author's Note:**

> Set mid-season two. 
> 
> What can I say about this? I kind of just wanted to see if I could write filth, I suppose. I'm sure it'll embarrass me in years to come, but what the hell. Publish and be damned! Huge thanks to MissyHissy3 for betaing.

“This is ridiculous.”

Chakotay turned to look at the Captain, who was standing beside the panel to the ready room door with her hands on her hips and a look of abject frustration on her face.

“Still no luck?”

She shook her head once, still glaring at the tangle of wires in front of her. “I just can’t get it open. Any joy with comms?”

“Nothing,” he said, from where he leaned over a PADD on her desk. “It looks as if the whole system’s down.”

Janeway rubbed both hands over her face, sweat glinting on her skin. Environmental systems were down too, and it had been at least half an hour since they’d both shed their uniform jackets and turtlenecks. Chakotay poured her a drink from the jug of water on her desk – she’d replicated it before this whole thing started, thank goodness – and held it out to her.

“Drink this. Take a breather. Then we’ll try something else.”

“How can you be so calm?” she complained, walking towards him and taking the glass.

“Years of dealing with the rustbuckets that were all the Maquis had,” he told her. “Believe me, this situation is a cake walk compared to some I’ve been in.”

She propped her butt against the desk, leaning back as she drank and turning her gaze towards the window at the other end of the room. Beyond it, the stars were still. _Voyager_ was at a dead stop.

“I’m not used to this,” she confessed, quietly. “Being on a ship that’s so isolated from help. Every other starship I’ve served on has been in reach of Starfleet whenever something catastrophic happened. Makes me realise how vulnerable we are out here. There’s nothing I can do and I don’t like it. I can’t even get out of the damn ready room.”

Her candour surprised him somewhat. In the eighteen months that they had known each other, she’d never really let her guard down around him, at least not so baldly. He looked her over, realising how tense she was, the stress delineated in the taut forms of her muscles, the clench of her jaw. Her current frustration was overlying what already constituted a surfeit of unreleased pressure. He wasn’t surprised – it hadn’t taken him long to realise that even Janeway’s basic work ethic constituted absolute dedication, and she’d had no respite since their arrival in the Delta Quadrant. Her position would have been beyond stressful for a seasoned admiral, let alone a newly minted captain. He should probably try to suggest ways for her to find relaxation, but he was aware of not crossing the line she had drawn between herself and the crew, and besides, he already knew she used the holodeck as much as the rest of them. What other outlets did they have? The Captain of _Voyager_ was under unbearable strain. That was inevitable and unavoidable, and there wasn’t much he could do about it besides what he already did.

Chakotay watched as she drained the glass, found himself tracing the movement of her throat as she swallowed and realised his gaze was being drawn towards places it shouldn’t be – places that were usually zipped safely beneath her thick Starfleet uniform. He looked away.

“This isn’t catastrophic,” he said, mildly, as she clunked the glass on the desk and crossed her arms. “We’re in open space. We got away from the Tal-Mor-Neth relatively unscathed. Whatever’s going on here, we’ll figure it out.”

“Ah, the small but mighty Tal-Mor-Neth,” Janeway muttered. “There’s a lesson in not judging a book by its cover. I’m guessing that our current situation is down to one of their torpedoes. B’Elanna’s still trying to understand how they managed to penetrate our shields.”

“And I’m sure that right now, she’s also trying to work out how to fix ship’s comms., environmental and propulsion. She’ll figure it out.”

Janeway hummed. “I can’t just sit here and do nothing. I need to get down there and help. We’re going to have to try the Jeffries tubes.” She pushed away from the desk and he followed her across the room to the access panel. She dropped to her knees to open it. Inside the passageway was dark.

“Looks as if at least some of the emergency lighting is out, too,” Chakotay observed.

“Grab a portable, would you?” she asked. “There’s one in my desk drawer.”

Chakotay did as he was told, retrieving the small hand-held LED light and handing it to her. Janeway flicked it on, her face immediately bathed in a soft white-blue shine. She glanced up at him.

“You can stay here if you’d prefer.”

He shook his head. “No, I’m with you, Captain.”

She gave him a brief smile and then disappeared into the tube. Chakotay left a little space and then followed. Crawling through a Jeffries tube wasn’t his idea of fun, but neither was sitting in the ready room with nothing to do for who knew how long. Besides, if they could get to engineering there’d surely be use for an extra pair of hands.

If they’d thought it was hot in the ready room, the Jeffries tube was something else. Chakotay hadn’t been crawling for two minutes before he was drenched in sweat. He distracted himself by concentrating on keeping pace with Janeway’s form as she moved ahead of him, and then thought better of it when he found himself idly admiring the way she moved her hips. Not a new problem, he had to admit.

They reached a firebreak, a sealed bulkhead that bisected the Jeffries tube with a hatch similar to the one they’d opened in the ready room, though this one was computer controlled. Janeway stopped crawling and keyed in the access command.

Nothing happened.

She tried it again with the same result, then reached for the manual release, but couldn’t get that to work, either. Chakotay resisted the urge to offer to have a go himself, but a moment later she looked at him over her shoulder anyway, a tacit request to do just that. They shuffled past each other – there really was so little room – but he couldn’t get it to shift either.

“I’m sorry, Captain,” he said. “I don’t think we’re getting through here in a hurry.”

“Damn!” Janeway exclaimed, slamming her palm against the wall.

“Hey,” he said, “hey, it’s OK.”

“It’s not OK! My ship is dead in space, my crew could be dead too for all I know, and-“

Her combadge beeped. “Tuvok to Janeway, please respond.”

Chakotay heard her exhalation of relief as she slammed her fingers down to answer. “Tuvok! It’s good to hear your voice. Report.”

“Is Commander Chakotay with you?”

“Yes, he’s here.”

“In that case, all crew are accounted for and unharmed.”

Chakotay saw the slight sag in Janeway at this information, and was grateful that the Vulcan had known exactly what his Captain’s first anxiety would be.

“Good,” she rasped. “That’s good to know. And the ship?”

“The outages are only affecting decks one to three, Captain,” Tuvok told her. “Lt Torres believes that one of the Tal-Mor-Neth torpedoes carried a delayed and localised EMP charge designed to disrupt ship function. We’re trying to locate it now. Other than that there is no damage.”

Janeway’s relief was palpable. “That’s good news, Tuvok.”

“Yes, Captain. We are attempting to reopen the ready room doors now.”

“We’re not in the ready room. We’re stuck in Jeffries tube five. We were attempting to reach engineering, but some of the hatches seem to be jammed.”

“Understood, Captain. We’ll free you and the Commander at the earliest opportunity. Transporters are currently off-line but now that ship’s communications have been re-established they’re the next on Lt. Torres’s list. I will inform you as soon as they’re functional.”

“Thank you, Tuvok. I’m hoping I’ll be able to free us myself before too long. If not you know where we are. Janeway out.”

She cut the transmission and rested her head on her arm, a posture of absolute relief. Chakotay laid one hand on her shoulder and squeezed slightly.

“There,” he said. “No catastrophe.”

“Other than the fact that we’re stuck here for the foreseeable.”

“Could be worse,” he told her. “You could have been having a meeting with Chell.”

She snickered a little at that, and he smiled.

“We can go back to the ready room and wait,” he suggested.

“No,” she said, raising her head. “I still want to get down to engineering if I can. Can you hold the light up? I’m going to work on this panel, see if I can’t coax this hatch into submission.”

They shifted around again so that she was in front of the panel. Chakotay moved behind her so that he could reach over her shoulder to do as she’d asked. As Janeway got to work they fell into silence. He had nothing to do but hold as still as he could – and watch her work in the soft light. A frown of concentration settled on her face as her long fingers first prised off the front of the panel and then tangled in its guts. The air in the tube was close and he could feel how hot she was. Beads of sweat gathered on her forehead, dampening the wisps of hair that had fallen loose from her bun. Her tank top was soaked with sweat, sticking to her skin.

He was suddenly hyper aware of everywhere their bodies touched. He’d always found her attractive, but they’d never been this close before, and certainly not in these precise circumstances. He exhaled, slowly, trying to quell the unexpected stab of lust that lanced through him. His breath shivered across her neck and he felt her flinch, the motion jolting her hips back against him. He saw her stutter a breath and shut her eyes briefly, and it occurred to him that he wasn’t the only one affected by their close proximity. He wasn’t a vain man, but he was also perfectly aware of the effect he had on women and had never been averse to enjoying where those effects could lead. In the Maquis he’d had plenty of opportunity. Here on _Voyager_, he’d had the opportunity but his position prevented him from pursuing unwise sexual relationships, and in any case there were other preoccupations. But still…

They’d been out here for a year and a half. When had Janeway last had sex? She didn’t strike him as the sort that would resort to the seedier uses of the holodeck. No wonder she was wound tighter than a spring. Another jolt of lust gripped low as he considered the possibility that there was a better way to be spending their time in this Jeffries tube than trying to get out of it. He leaned a fraction closer to her neck and blew gently against her skin. She made a sound this time, a tiny moan she probably didn’t even realise she’d made. Her fingers convulsed at the panel and he watched the shiver pass down her throat and chest. He saw her nipples harden and his cock jumped in his pants.

He clicked off the light.

“Chak-“

“Ssh,” he whispered, just behind her ear. He put down the light and curled his arm around her, pulling her back against him. He could feel her heart beating hard and fast in her chest. He pressed his lips to her skin, felt the uneven stutter of her breath. “It’s just us. No one will ever know. Pretend I’m someone else. Pretend it never happened. Whatever you want. Just be here, now.”

He kissed her again, used his tongue to taste her, moved his arm so that he could curve his hand against her ribcage, beneath one breast. She juddered and maybe she tried to stop another little moan, but she didn’t succeed. He could feel how tightly she was strung, like a bowstring pulled back as far as it could go, bent under unbearable pressure that would snap if it wasn’t released.

“Say yes,” he whispered, before he sucked her earlobe between his lips. “Say yes.”

She made a strangled sound. Then, a second or two later: “Yes. _Yes_.”

He kissed her throat, his hand working its way south to the fastening of her pants. He’d got them open and slid his hand inside, reaching for her heat, before he realised that out of everything she’d been missing over the past eighteen months, fingers wouldn’t even make the long list. He slid his body down, turning her on her back as he went, working her uniform pants down her thighs. He could feel her heat, radiating from beneath her panties, which were already so wet that he knew it wasn’t going to take much. In the darkness Chakotay imagined what she looked like as he hooked his thumbs into her underwear and pulled them from her hips, and his cock was already so hard it was almost painful. Janeway made a sound and lifted her butt off the floor, and there she was against his lips, salty and hot and so wet his mouth watered even as he snaked out his tongue to lick her. He flattened his tongue and smoothed it into her and up, slowly, and the sound she made was the hottest thing he’d ever heard. When he reached her clit she came so quickly it took him by surprise even though he’d expected it. He sucked as much of her into his mouth as he could, tongue sliding deep, hands holding her hips still until she stopped shaking.

He moved then, but only a little, gently kissing her thigh over and over as she returned to the present. If he didn’t get to fuck her he thought he might actually explode, but knew it was likely that she’d stop this now, want to pretend it hadn’t happened. She began to move under him and he thought she was pushing him away, but then he realised she was forcing her pants further down, trying to get out of them. He smoothed them down her legs, unzipping her boots and pulling them and her socks off at the same time. He heard her moving around but it wasn’t until she leaned into him, fumbling for his zipper, that he realised she’d pulled off her tank top and bra, too. Her naked breasts brushed against his chest and he reached up and pulled off his own tank top, breathing hitching at the feel of her nipples sliding against his chest.

With her help he pulled off his pants and his boxers, too. He was still kneeling, his shoulders bent against the low ceiling of the Jeffries tube. He was too old for this, he really was, but when he felt her fingers wrap around his cock, her thumb smoothing over its tip, he realised there was literally no where else he’d rather be at that moment. She let him go, shuffled around a little more. Then he felt wet heat and realised that she’d wrapped her legs around his hips so that the head of his cock was pressing against her.

He couldn’t stop his groan, one arm looping around her waist, his face against her shoulder. He wanted to thrust into her immediately, spear her with one fast, hot stab, but it had been months for her, months.

_Control it_, he thought to himself, gritting his teeth. _Slow. Careful. Control yourself._

She leaned back and he found himself supporting her weight with the arm across her lower back. He couldn’t work out what she was doing, missed her naked upper body against his, but then the weight eased and his cock slid into her a little and his mind nearly exploded. She moaned and it was all he could do not to ram himself all the way into her right then. He slid in a little further, stopped again, panting, wanting.

The emergency light came on. For a second Chakotay was blinded, confused. Then he felt a flicker of panic, wondering whether he’d somehow turned it on himself, knew that in the light she would end this, now. He saw her clearly for the first time: her naked body sloping away from where his arm held her against his thighs, her legs spread around his hips, her breasts shivering against her shortened breath as her shoulders rubbed against the carpet, one arm stretched above her head, hand braced against the wall of the Jeffries tube. The other still clutched the emergency light that she had turned on herself. She was looking at him. She was looking _right_ at him, eyes half-open beneath heavy lids, lips parted, cheeks and neck flushed.

“Just fuck me,” she said, in a low, rasping voice that thrummed a chord right through his cock. “Fuck me with everything you’ve got. _Commander_.”

He didn’t know what shocked him the most – the sight of her under him, her filthy order or the use of his rank. Chakotay heard himself utter a choked sound and surged forward, burying himself deep. They both cried out, and he had just enough conscious thought left to note the way she reached above her head with both arms, stretching herself out against the floor, giving herself over to him completely. She arched her back, breasts quivering, nipples hard, and he felt his mouth fall slack. He was balls deep in Kathryn Janeway. _Kathryn Janeway_. He hadn’t thought he could possibly get any harder. He was wrong.

He drew back and she shuddered, elegant fingers curling into themselves, bottom lip caught between her teeth. He gripped her hips with both hands and slammed back into her, hearing the keening cry she made. He did it again, and again, and again, fucking her in exactly the way she’d asked, his shoulders scraping against the ceiling of the tube, knowing his knees would never be the same again but _fuck_ it felt so, so good. _She_ felt so good.

He felt her clench around him as she came, hard, arching her back so far off the floor that he almost overbalanced. He thought her cry could probably be heard two decks away but then it was likely that his could be too. He came more violently than he had since he was a teenager, hard and long and with such an explosion of raw pleasure that for a split second he thought the light had gone out again.

When his vision cleared he looked down at her breasts, pale and soft, beautiful, mesmerising. He could still feel her pulsing around him as she recovered. Kathryn made a sound as her breathing finally steadied and he realised she was laughing, a slow, smoky rumble deep in her flushed throat.

“Well, damn,” she said. “I haven’t had sex in a Jeffries tube since I was a cadet. My carpet burns are getting carpet burns.”

The motion of her laughter rippled through her body to where his cock was still buried. He felt it jump in response and was slightly astonished to realise that he might actually be able to get hard again almost immediately. She rose up on her forearms, one eyebrow raised, flushed, tousled, mussed. _Alive_. And laughing at him, but only just a little.

“Really? _Already_?”

He grinned, delighted by her sudden playfulness. He bent his head, gently sucking one breast into his mouth, tongue curling around its tip as he smoothed one hand up her torso to caress her other. “I don’t know,” he said, lips still on her, his words vibrating against her wet nipple so that she let her head fall back with a tiny moan. “Maybe it’s the thought of how unexpectedly filthy that pretty mouth of yours is. _Captain_.”

She brought her head up again and looked down at him. He met her gaze even as he kept suckling at her breast, kept watching her watching him. He rolled her other nipple between his fingers and she bit her lower lip. There was a hot, wicked glint in her eye and oh yes, that was definitely not a post-coital twinge but a pre-

“Oh?” she said, in that low tone that would for him now forever drip with sex, “you want me to tell you how often I’ve thought about you fucking me? In my ready room, my head against the desk and your cock ramming me from behind? Up against the Turbolift – any Turbolift – wall? In my sonic shower when I only had my own fingers for company? Or maybe you want to hear how many times I’ve thought about sucking your cock? Is that what you want to hear about, _Chakotay_?”

The sound of his name in that voice after that delicious stream of obscenities made him groan. He began to thrust into her wet heat, slowly, slowly, in and out, in and out, still making love to her breast with his mouth. It took a long time and through it all she looked down at him, watching him fuck her, and every throaty moan she gave made him harder. He kept licking at her nipple until his back felt ready to pop and when he gave up that angle she lifted her leg higher over his hip but the pace didn’t change: slow, slow, until he was almost as hard as he’d been the first time. Eventually she moved one hand, laying it on her chest and then sliding it down, over one breast, down her stomach and between them, curling her fingers under his balls in a motion so skilled that it made him lurch into freefall before she started stroking her clit, and this time when she came she was looking right into his eyes and this time when he came he was kissing her, with a lot more sweetness than was wise.

Afterwards he pulled her to him, more a reflex than a conscious decision, her forehead beneath his chin, his arms wrapped around her. He felt her hands skim across his back and for a moment or two they just held each other. It occurred to him that having someone just hold her was something else she hadn’t had for well over a year.

She wasn’t wrong about the carpet burns. He was fairly sure he’d left all the skin of his kneecaps on the coarse grey Starfleet issue fibres. But yeah. Worth it.

“We’d better get dressed,” she said, her voice muffled against his chest. “If they decide to beam us out we really will be screwed.”

He shivered a laugh into her hair and felt her hands flex against his back. It was a motion that took him by surprise for there was something sad in it, something almost wistful. She pulled back, eyes turned away from him. He let her go and cleaned up as best he could as she wriggled into her uniform pants. There was something strangely moving about watching her put her bra back on, a commonplace action somehow even more intimate than what they’d just so spectacularly achieved.

A moment later she was back beneath the thick layers of Starfleet, the glimpse of her he’d just revelled in hidden again. Chakotay backed away, noting how successfully she was shutting down the part of herself that was the most alive he’d ever seen her be. She still wouldn’t look at him. He felt the need to head this issue off at the pass, understood her well enough to know the internal war she was currently waging.

“Kathryn,” he said, softly, and at the sound of her name on his lips her head snapped up, eyes wide. He’d never called her by her name before, had never been invited to do so, but if he couldn’t take that liberty now then when would he ever? “I just want you to know that you don’t have anything to worry about. This… won’t change anything. There are no negative effects for you to be concerned about.”

She clenched her jaw, then released it, still not looking at him. He let the silence hang until she said, “I don’t… this isn’t usual. For me. I don’t make a habit of-“

She stopped. Her face was still turned away from him.

“I know that,” he told her. “I know it because I’ve worked beside you long enough to know you, but I also know it because you _needed_ that. We’ve been out here a long time, and you-“

This time it was he who stopped. She turned her head to look at him, and her beauty in the soft emergency light took him by surprise, pierced something in him.

“And I – what?” she asked.

Chakotay reached out and brushed his thumb along her jaw. “You can’t ignore what you need indefinitely without it taking its toll. We don’t know how long we’re going to be out here. You can’t just shut down that part of you.”

She lifted her face away from his hand. “It’s sex, not breathing,” she said. “I don’t _need _it.”

“You’re human,” he said, quietly. “It’s part of being human. That’s all. It’s not something to be ashamed of.”

“It is when it involves a subordinate crewmember.”

He nodded, aware that this was at the crux of the problem. “Technically, I’m not a crewmember. I’m a Maquis captain to whom you gave a field commission that it’s entirely possible Starfleet will not uphold.”

She huffed a laugh. “That’s a very slim out, Commander.”

“Hey,” he said, and it was only as he said the words that he realised what he was really saying, and how much he meant it. “I’m willing to go with it if you are.”

She blinked at him, opened her mouth, shut it again, and then said, “This can’t happen again. It can’t. Understand? I’m engaged to be married, I’m your Captain, this is – this isn’t-“

“Yes,” he said, unwilling to watch her struggle. “I understand.”

A pained look passed her face. “I’m-“

“Don’t say you’re sorry. There’s nothing to be sorry about. Take this for what it was, Kathryn. Very much enjoyed on both sides, and not something I’ll ever regret.”

Her cheeks actually coloured a little at that. It made him want to kiss her. He was unsettled to find that the thought of never doing that again seemed wrong, somehow.

Her combadge beeped. It was Tuvok.

It was a good job that, just for once, their timing wasn’t off.

[END]

**Author's Note:**

> Since I posted this, someone far smarter than me has pointed out that Jeffries tubes don't have carpet. But tbh I don't care because a) Janeway's 'carpet burn' dialogue is my fave line in this fic and b) life is too short to worry about a lack of literary realism in a 4,000 word fic about shagging on a starship.


End file.
